Portland Showdown in Photos

Proud Boys Clash with Antifa at Patriot Prayer

Sunday, August 6, the Patriot Prayer group led by right wing blogger Joey Gibson of Vancouver, Washington, held a rally and march along Tom McCall Waterfront Park. The Facebook event page read:

“The more hatred we see the more we have to stand against it. The more threats that we get the more we have to come out to show no fear. The more people lie about us the more we have to show who we are.”

Antifa showed up early and en masse, as was expected. And as they had promised in the many emails Gibson received (and shared publicly), they came with the intent to use violence. From the few physical encounters I personally witnessed they were the instigators, without a doubt. In fact today Gibson posted an email from Antifa after the march which read:

“We’re done with the talk and yelling you saw us rush in and charge because we’re ready to stand tall We will crush you and your crew! John Beavers and David Fry already dropped out and many more will the only people sticking with you are the racists and bigots.”

Curiously police were not in attendance, save for one van of riot officers a few hundred yards away and another one about 50 yards away with a walkie-talkie. Despite obvious assaults from the masked Antifa crowd, police never intervened until after the march, arresting one member of Antifa (I believe), and Tusitala “Tiny” Toese on disorderly conduct charges.

The man with the sunglasses throwing the punch, and the other with the bandana on his face spent the majority of their time at the protest attempting to steal MAGA hats from people and then running away. In the first photo you see them trying to get the hat from a man with what I like to call “fuck you” arms. In the second photo you can see why I call them that.

Antifa thugs pepper-spray a patriot unprovoked. The man gets up and confronts them.

Patriot Prayer group leader Joey Gibson rallying people together to stress their anti-violence, only self-defense policy, while members of the Proud Boys give peace signs to the Antifa crowd screaming “nazi” at them.

Proud Boys re-group at the front of the crowd in anticipation of Antifa, who are threatening to use pepper-spray again if they don’t leave. They didn’t leave.

The megaphone, or as i like to call it “MAGAphone,” is wrapped in a plastic shopping bag which i can only assume is meant to prevent pepper-spray from getting inside. Antifa sure loves their pepper-spray.

Somehow silly-string always comes out after the pepper-spray fails. A solid metaphor for how Antifa operates as a group: unorganized, ineffective, and straight-up silly.

It never ceases to amaze me that something as simple as a man in a fresh-ass Fred Perry shirt standing silently in a public park can trigger 200 Portland kids simultaneously.

After Tusitala “Tiny” Toese was pepper-sprayed in an unprovoked attack, members of the Proud Boys retrieved an Antifa flag from one of the attackers, which was then left burning on the sidewalk as they marched on.